Russia Will Spy On Everyone At The Sochi Olympics

Russia's President
Vladimir Putin holds a torch during a ceremony to mark the start
of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic torch relay across Russia, in
Moscow on October 6, 2013.Alexei
Nikolsky/RIA-NOVOSTI/AFP

Russia has installed an all-encompassing surveillance system at
the site of next year's Winter Olympic Games in Sochi that will
allow security services to listen in on athletes and visitors,
security analysts said on Monday.

The surveillance system was first developed by the Soviet-era
KGB, predecessor of the FSB special services, in the mid-1980s
and updated in recent years, said prominent security analyst
Andrei Soldatov.

Dubbed SORM, the system will give Russian security services free
access to all phone and Internet communications at the Olympic
Games in February without the providers' knowledge, according to
research by Soldatov and his colleague Irina Borogan.

Telecom providers are required to pay for the SORM equipment and
its installation, but law enforcement agencies will be able to
wiretap without having to show providers court orders allowing
the eavesdropping, the analysts said.

"Operators do not know what and when the FSB is monitoring,"
Soldatov told AFP.

Citing research based on documents published by the Russian
government procurement agency and other government records, the
analysts said the authorities have been installing the
surveillance devices in the Black Sea resort of Sochi since 2010.

Russia has pulled out all the stops to get the subtropic region
ready for the Games, spending more than $50 billion in state and
corporate money on infrastructure improvements including mobile
networks.

"There is a promise that visitors will have access to the fastest
WiFi networks in Olympic history, for free," the researchers said
on their website agentura.ru.

But at the same time, the analysts said, national telecom
provider Rostelecom is installing DPI (deep packet inspection)
systems on all its mobile networks, technology which will allow
the FSB not only to monitor all traffic but also to filter it.

While many Olympic host countries take steps to monitor
communications for security reasons, Russia will take
surveillance to a new level, said Soldatov, adding the government
will also deploy drones and sonars to detect submarines.

"The most unique feature of this system is its totality," said
Soldatov, adding he was astonished to learn that the defence
ministry bought the sonars especially for the Olympic Games.